BioTrove clears the way for new disease pathway research

BioTrove has launched a series of assay panels that enable researchers to skip the laborious initial steps of gene selection and assay optimisation and start studying disease pathways straightaway.

The new OpenArray Pathways qPCR (quantitative polymerase chain reaction) assay panels have been designed to work with BioTrove’s OpenArray System and enable researchers to study up to four samples simultaneously against a selection of over 600 genes on a single OpenArray plate.

The identification of those gene families involved with specific diseases and how they are differentially expressed after being treated with various drug compounds lies at the heart of modern biomedical research.

"Insight into the regulation of gene expression is essential to understanding cellular function and structure in cells or tissues - both normal and diseased," said Kevin Munnelly, vice president and general manager of OpenArray.

"These panels are designed and optimized to allow our customers to focus more on furthering genomic exploration, whether used in the discovery or validation of biologically relevant genes."

BioTrove's OpenArray system is an automated nanolitre fluidic system that enables low-volume solution phase reactions to be performed in a 'massively parallel' manner.

The system can run 3 plates at a time and over 3,000 assays per plate with each experiment needing only 33nl, dramatically reducing reagent consumption.

The initial set of human assay panels have been designed to study the gene families most commonly associated with ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion), apoptosis, cancer, cardiovascular disease, inflammation, kinome and signal transduction.

The cancer panel, for example, covers the gene families responsible for DNA repair, angiogenesis, cell adhesion and ECM as well as including apoptosis, cell cycle and many of the genes encoding kinases and transcription factors that have been found

to be differentially expressed in early cancerous growths and metastatic diseases.

According to the company, additional human panels that focus on transcription factors, drug targets, GPCR (G-protein coupled receptors) will be available soon.

Additionally, the company has plans to release a series of mouse panels that focus on inflammation, cardiovascular disease and transcription factors, a well as a series of rat panels.

"BioTrove is committed to advancing screening and discovery in life science research using systems biology approaches - and the newest member of our OpenArray family does just that," said Dr Albert Luderer, CEO of BioTrove.

"Pathways pre-validated assay panels will simplify the analysis of biochemical pathways and disease genes, helping to advance the genomic research that impacts healthcare, biomedical research and much more."

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